quote:

Originally posted by wtg:
They've put Rudy in charge of the lawsuits. Seems he's being rewarded for trying to channel his inner Roy Cohn.

https://www.politico.com/news/...p-legal-plans-436475

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The federal government’s chief information security officer is participating in an effort backed by supporters of President Trump to hunt for evidence of voter fraud in the battleground states where President-elect Joe Biden secured his election victory.

Camilo Sandoval said in an interview that he has taken a break from his government duties to work for the Voter Integrity Fund, a newly formed Virginia-based group that is analyzing ballot data and cold-calling voters in an attempt to substantiate the president’s outlandish claims about illicit voting.

Sandoval is one of several Trump appointees in the federal government — some in senior roles — who are harnessing their expertise for the project, according to the group’s leader.

The participation of administration officials in the project shows the extent of the efforts by the president’s allies to justify his unfounded allegations of widespread ballot fraud.

Federal employees are required under ethics rules to keep political activity separate from their government roles. Officials with the Voter Integrity Fund said the political appointees participating in the project are doing it in their personal time.

In an interview on Friday, Sandoval defended his involvement in the endeavor as appropriate, saying he had taken vacation time from his government position, which he started last month. He said he was not using any government resources, such as his work computer or cellphone, while searching for fraud.

“I am doing this in my private capacity, just as many others have done in past elections,” he said. “I think it’s pretty clear that this is acceptable and normal.”

A spokeswoman for the White House Office of Management and Budget, where Sandoval works, said on Friday that Sandoval was on leave, but did not respond when asked if he was continuing to receive his government salary.

Sandoval is part of a hastily convened team led by Matthew Braynard, a data specialist who worked on Trump’s 2016 campaign. Another participant is Thomas Baptiste, an adviser to the deputy secretary of the Interior Department, who also took a leave to work on the project.

Braynard said in an interview that several other government officials on leave are also assisting the effort, but he declined to identify them.

The group is analyzing voter rolls and other databases in search of signs that ballots may have been cast illegally, information that Braynard said is being shared with Trump’s campaign. The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

The group appears to be attempting a makeshift version of an effort already conducted by a nonprofit consortium of states, which uses sophisticated data analysis to root out duplicate voter registrations and registrations of people who have moved or died. A Washington Post analysis of vote-by-mail data from three of the states in the 2016 and 2018 elections found that officials identified 372 possible fraud cases among 14.6 million votes — 0.0025 percent of ballots.

Braynard maintained that his project was pathbreaking, saying they had found that many states do not update their voter rolls “very aggressively or frequently.”

“Nobody’s ever done this before,” he said. “These things have to be done to find potential problems.”

David Becker, who led the creation of the interstate consortium, said it had taken more than three years to develop and relied on sophisticated software and proprietary state data that is unavailable to analysts like Braynard and Sandoval.

Becker said the Voter Integrity Fund appeared to be the latest in a series of “shoddy, fly-by-night” efforts to replicate the project and would inevitably flag numerous false positives based on inadequate data.

“I would put absolutely no stock in their analysis,” said Becker, who is now the executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research.

quote:

Originally posted by Jack Frost:

quote:

Originally posted by wtg:
They've put Rudy in charge of the lawsuits. Seems he's being rewarded for trying to channel his inner Roy Cohn.

https://www.politico.com/news/...p-legal-plans-436475

And as a result, the two real law firms working for Trump have quit.

Jf

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Originally posted by jon-nyc:
As I said next door:


There’s a saying in legal circles: If the law is on your side, argue the law. If the facts are on your side, argue the facts. If neither are on your side, bang the table.

This is Trump’s ‘bang the table’ team.

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The game of musical chairs among lawyers pursuing President Donald Trump’s court challenges to the election results continued on Monday evening, as the campaign tried to replace the entire team handling the campaign’s federal lawsuit seeking to block certification of Pennsylvania’s results.

A court filing said Marc Scaringi, a Harrisburg, Pa., attorney, conservative talk radio host and former Senate candidate, was taking over the case. The move came just hours before a potentially make-or-break court hearing scheduled for Tuesday afternoon on motions by Pennsylvania state and county officials to dismiss the lawsuit.

The legal escapade devolved into farce on Monday night as the federal judge rejected a move by the campaign to postpone that key hearing.

Less than 90 minutes after the outgoing attorneys for the campaign assured U.S. District Court Judge Matthew Brann that “Scaringi is aware of the schedule set by the Court in this matter and will be prepared to proceed according to that schedule,” Scaringi asked the judge to put off the session, arguing that he was inadequately prepared.

“Having only been retained today, Plaintiffs’ new counsel need additional time to adequately prepare this case for the upcoming oral argument and evidentiary hearing,” Scaringi wrote. “Furthermore, this is a case of significant complexity and importance to the people of the United States of America.”

Brann, an appointee of President Barack Obama who sits in Williamsport, Pa., promptly denied the continuance without explanation — beyond noting that the request was filed at 7:40 P.M.

“Oral argument will take place as scheduled, tomorrow, November 17, 2020,” the judge wrote. “Counsel for the parties are expected to be prepared for argument and questioning.”

Brann also appeared to balk at the campaign’s attempt to swap out its entire legal team. He excused two Texas-based attorneys who just formally joined the case on Friday, but did not immediately release a Pennsylvania lawyer who has served as local counsel since the suit was filed a week ago.

The latest tumult in the Trump campaign’s legal lineup followed a rapid-fire series of similar switches in recent days. Just four days ago, an Ohio-based law firm handling the suit — Porter, Wright Morris & Arthur — begged off the case under pressure from Trump opponents who regard his lawsuits as frivolous and divisive.

A campaign spokesman said last week that those lawyers “buckled” under the liberal onslaught and would be replaced with “rock-solid attorneys.” ....

On Friday, Brann approved the addition of two Texas lawyers to represent the campaign — John Scott and Douglas Hughes. But Scott and Hughes lasted only one business day. The third attorney who sought to exit, Linda Kerns, is a Philadelphia-based solo practitioner.

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On a recent broadcast of Scaringi’s radio show, which airs weekly on WHP-AM in Harrisburg, the new counsel for the Trump campaign sounded dismissive about the lawsuits filed by the campaign and other Republicans.

“There really are no bombshells that are about to drop that will derail a Biden presidency, including these lawsuits,” Scaringi said on Nov. 7, according to a recording posted by the liberal group Media Matters. “At the end of the day, in my view, the litigation will not work. It will not reverse this election.”

In addition, a blog post that appeared on the website of Scaringi’s law firm seemed to endorse the idea that Trump was defeated in the election earlier this month. “Joe Biden has successfully claimed the role of the 46th president of the United States,” said the unsigned post, which was deleted sometime on Monday.

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President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani on Tuesday asked to be allowed to join the Trump campaign’s lawsuit seeking to stop Pennsylvania from certifying election results expected to confirm a projected victory for President-elect Joe Biden.

Giuliani’s last-minute request to have a federal judge admit him came hours before a hearing in the case, and after two sets of lawyers for Trump’s reelection campaign quit the case over the past week.

It also came after the judge denied a request by another new attorney for the campaign to postpone Tuesday’s hearing, which is set for 1:30 p.m. ET.

A former New York City mayor and federal prosecutor, Giuliani is not currently admitted to practice law in Pennsylvania federal court, so he needs permission from the judge to appear in the case.

Giuliani’s application says that he is “currently a member in good standing” of a number of state and federal courts, and of the District of Columbia Bar.